A Trip to the Moon is a silent film and the creation of French illusionist and filmmaker Georges Méliès, who I wouldn’t have known about if I hadn’t seen Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film Hugo. While watching Scorsese’s film, I had no idea that Ben Kingsley’s character was an accurate historical depiction of France’s cinema legend Georges Méliès and that most of the antique film frames used in Hugo were excerpts from Méliès’ surviving and reconstructed films. Those images were so wonderful that I couldn’t resist researching this wonderful legend and his films.
For the next four paragraphs, I will be giving you the story of how this once-lost film was reconstructed. The technical details fascinate me. If you want to know more about Georges Méliès, I would suggest viewing Scorsese’s film Hugo and then learn more by reading about Méliès here.